Freestylin´

Well its been such a long time, and I have so many adventures to catch up on. The last few weeks have seen me in New Mexico, Old Mexico, Cuba and now Costa Rica (although leaving at 11pm ce soir, hence sat in an internet cafe filling up time, plus it is pouring here). As internet connection in Cuba is still dial up I opted to keep a written journal of thoughts and tom foolery, as such when I actually have that journal with me I will copy up the Cuba anecdotes. For now I´ll just witter about Mexicos Old and New along with Costa Rica from memory (so please bear with me if it gets sketchy).

So New Mexico. I pretty much covered it, asides I believe from a couple of characters I ran into and an incident with the Greyhound bus. OK the characters, in no particular order. First there was Doc. Doc lived in the trailer a couple of doors down from my friend Lucy, she had befriended him and his dog Gizmo and I can see wh. He was a top bloke, with a white beard, bald head and a heart of pure gold. Doc took us out on a road trip on his birthday, we went out into the hills to some little towns where they used to mine for silver back in the 19th century. The scenery accross the desert scape was awesome, classic American trails which we ripped up in Docs truck. He knew the roads well, he used to be a trucker by trade and told us some quality stories, whilst Lucy and I pestered him to stop everywhere for photos! We went through a town called Winston, pretty small, not much more than a gas station and some trailers, then we got to Chloride, population 11, yes 11. It is a proper ghost town, pretty much abandoned by the 1920s http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/nm/chloride.html and contains two awesome things. One is the town store, which is now a museum, pretty much exactly as it was in 1920 when it was closed down by its then owner, to be untouched for nearly 70 years. The other awesome thing is the gate with the sign on it. The gate stands in the middle of a empty field, with no walls or fences attached to it. It has a sign on it, saying ´Please close the gate´. I found this to be hilarious, as did Lucy. We took photos and even a video of Lucy closing the gate after walking through it, which is going to be put on Youtube. I think it has Oscar written all over it, comedy genius. So after that bout of the giggles we left the 11 other people in town and headed home, stopping off for a home made Pecan pie for Docs birthday party that night at the springs resort.

It was a pretty chilled party, with pizza, popcorn, pecan pie, chocolate covered pecans, birthday cake and singing. Lots of people turned up, including the next character, without whom my story would not be complete. Big John is the tallest man i have ever met. He is a 6´11" Californian with long flowing hair, has skin darker than a Nigerian ( he specifically asked me to write that bit, I dont normally do requests but have made an exception on this occasion) and has made love to over 10,000 women. Apparently. Could be an exaggeration, but the best stories are always slightly embellished as my good friend Giles Davenport once told me. Big John also has the best moustache ever, most men couldn´t even imagine having such a cool moustache. Anyway, John was a cool guy and to tie him into the story, he saved my bacon the following day and proved himself to be a great friend but a terrible singer (only kidding John, although he does do a great impression of Optimus Prime, the best I have heard.)

That night I went to leave Truth or Consequences, I had a seat reserved on the one and only Greyhound bus that runs through town at 1030 pm every evening. The problem was, the bus ran and ran. It kept running, it didn´t slow down and it didn´t stop to pick us up. All week, people had been telling me their story of how they wound up in T or C. Most people are drawn there by mysterious powers and never leave. Was it also my fate to never leave?

Well dear reader. There I was, in a funny little town in the middle of the desert, coming up to 11pm at night with a
sand storm kicking up, and no where to stay. Enter Big John. I knocked on his trailer door, he had made the offer of his couch earlier in the week and now it was to deliver on the offer, in my hour of need John did not fail me. I slept like a log on his couch in the front room of the caravan, until about 430am when he awoke me by apologising for the fact that the bathroom had no door and that he was "dropping the kids off at he pool", pretty much in the same room as me. Anyways, I had about an hours more sleep and then got up to phone American Airlines, I had a flight from Alburquerque to Mexico City that morning that I was not going to make, due to the Greyhound incident. So $181 later I had rebooked my flight for the following day and John was getting ready to drive me the 2 hour trip to Alberquerque. He had to go anyway, he wanted to buy some size 15 fur lined moccasin boots, it gets cold at night in the desert you know, even for incredibly tall people with awesome moustaches.

So, Lucy, John and I set off for Alburquerque. We had great fun in the car, laughing, joking, chatting and singing. It was very funny. We sang some really bad songs, like Haddaways "What is Love" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo 2 Unlimiteds "No Limit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzyFmilkd80&feature=related and Culturebeats "Mr Vain" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvgUdrzGNys&feature=related, to give you an idea of how bad they were. I dont know why we did it, but it was great fun. I have done quite alot of singing recently. Not that I´m good, just been enjoying it. Anyway, you kind of had to be there to understand it, but its a car journey I will remember with fond memories for a long time.

Thanks Big John and Lucy.